Doodle Me Darkly

I was sitting in my office sharpening pencils and wondering where my next batch was coming from. The phone hadn’t rung for days. There had been nothing in the mailbox but bills and mortgage scams. I hadn’t had a decent idea in weeks. Outside my grimy window was a bleak view of the city. A dark, ink-wash sky hung over it all. It looked like it might rain. I took a sip of cold, black coffee from the chipped cup on my desk.

Then the door opened and she walked in. More accurately, she floated in, about three feet or so off the floor. I wondered how she did that.

She looked vaguely familiar: Long, flowing blond hair and a face that could start all the stopped clocks in the world ticking again. She was wearing a form-fitting white gown that gave my imagination a thirty-second workout, and she had sandals down there on her feet, right where you’d expect. She was carrying a small golden harp and “The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker” under one arm.

She glided over to my drawing board and hovered for a while. I tried to stay cool, but noticed out of the corner of my eye that my drawing hand was shaking like a plate of pink Jell-O in an earthquake. She looked me straight in the eye, and then glanced down at the blank piece of paper on my desk. “I’ve got an idea for you, big guy,” she breathed, “if you want it.”

“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.” I said, trying to steady my right hand by repeatedly jabbing at it with the recently sharpened pencil in my left. She seemed not to notice.

“A woman is awakened by a man washing a Volkswagen in their bedroom,” she began. “The man says, ‘I couldn’t sleep.’”